rob 37 heroin

By robert j. kubiak

Do you ever find yourself wishing things were different? Have you ever just wanted to feel different? Wanted to escape? Have you ever tried to slit your wrist or overdose on sleeping pills? Have you ever stolen a car with two complete strangers? Have you ever been held up at gunpoint? Have you ever been to jail? Have you ever agreed to marry som

• Language: English
• Publisher: robert J. kubiak jr
• Release date: Apr 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798986111216

robert j. kubiak

Five years old and still going by 'Bobby' back then, enjoying a cold beverage on the front porch. When I first met rob 37 heroin.... Who is this weirdo sitting by himself in the sun and writing in what appears to be a diary? Upon closer look, he gave off the serial killer from Se7en vibe with notebooks in no discernible order. I was intrigued. Moody, brooding, irreverent, can quote recovery cliches all day but can't stay clean for 20 minutes. How does he write with such small letters? Gonna have carpal tunnel by the end of the month if he keeps this up. And that's gotta be 100 pages he's written just since I've been here. None of us thought the weird dude who sat in the sun in a plastic chair would make it. But the months went by, and he stuck around. Rob was a regular at meetings, sitting in the same spot, annoyingly wearing his headphones, which made him terribly unapproachable. He chose his words carefully, and I wanted to believe them for myself. He's a new person, a better person, a friend, a teacher, a brother. I don't know the out-of-control drug using Rob in these stories, but I know who he is today. Enjoy this second book of stories from rob-37-heroin. I hope they inspire you as much as they have inspired me.

Book preview

1

Intro

I’ve spent almost half my life in and out of treatment centers, psych units, rehabs, hospitals, and detox centers. I feel compelled to share some things I’ve learned throughout the years.

Maybe it’s the series of ECTs (electro-convulsive therapy or shock treatments) administered to me a decade ago or perhaps I was born this way, but I’ve always felt a little off. Like I wasn’t built to withstand the mundane day-to-day activities of life. It’s like I’ve always demanded more from life than life had to give. I was always seeking some sort of escape. From what? I’m not sure, but I just always felt like I needed something else. Something more. Something different. Anything but whatever was right in front of me. I’ve heard addiction described as an inability to live in the moment. And that has characterized most of my life.

They say depression is a response to past loss, and that anxiety is a response to perceived future loss—and that’s where I have dwelled most of my waking life. I was either ruminating and beating myself up about something that happened in the past or terrified about something that might happen in the future. I could never just live in the moment and acknowledge what was going on directly in front of me. In those rare moments when I could acknowledge the present and current state of affairs, I was using illicit substances. The only times I recall having visceral experiences were when I was fucked up.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all bad. I have a mental Rolodex of hundreds of thousands of fond memories from my using days. Almost all my favorite memories from my late teens to late thirties revolve around getting or being high. For a very long time, that’s all there was for me. I had nothing else; it defined me, and I was perfectly okay with that. I knew I was 100% powerless as soon as I took each drink and drug, and I had no problem admitting that. Before the consequences and lifestyle became overwhelmingly horrific, I used to celebrate it and own it.

It was a love affair with drugs and alcohol that lasted a long time and, like any unhealthy relationship, the romance and allure that initially attracted me to it became replaced with shame, remorse, and regret. It is a relationship that is destined to implode and the only variable in the equation is how many casualties will result. I’m still here—barely—but that’s not the case for some of the brightest minds I’ve known through the years. Those people could not escape the tentacles of circumstance, and they perished along the way, struggling in the grips of addiction and mental anguish. The relationship must end; it’s just not something a person can sustain forever. You bottom out eventually and it all falls apart; the only difference in the outcome is whether the wreckage is permanent.

Since I’m still here, I figured I’d compile this collection of miscellaneous stories that I think someone like myself might find interesting and useful, particularly during those tedious and nerve-racking moments of downtime during early recovery when it is SO fucking painful and difficult. So, if you’re struggling right now or if you have a family member or friend who’s struggling, keep reading.

For every addict, there are times when you feel like you’re barely holding on by a thread and everything feels overwhelming. I felt that way every time I staggered back into treatment or detox or a psych ward. It was as though I was chronically in early recovery. And yes, I get it, nobody understands, and you’ve got such complicated and complex situations going on right now. You’re feeling like even if you could somehow convey the pain to others, they wouldn’t understand the magnitude of your predicament. We all think our suffering is unique, but as the days crawl by and the mental cloud clears, you can see there is a solution. And once someone shows you the solution, the situation becomes manageable. If you want an epically better life for yourself or someone you love, you just need to be honest and open-minded, and you will see how drastically improved things can be with a little effort, courage, and acceptance.

I’m telling my story so you can see how, eventually, things worked out for me.

2

The Belt

Riding along the railings of time

Radiating glorious susceptibilities

Amidst the autumnal bliss.

Manifesting fortified complacency

And transcribing the inexplicable

With harmonious delight.

Organically fixated with unmistakable caution

On cognitive appetites with relentless potential

Yet decidedly overwhelmed by life.

My first clear memory of childhood was moving from Lockport to Barrington, Illinois when I was five years old. I was completely lost and devastated—my entire world was uprooted, and everything I had known was left behind. My neighborhood, my best friend Ryan, the shrubs in my neighbor’s yard where I fell while learning to ride my bike—everything.

I became vaguely optimistic the day we moved in because our new house was situated on a golf course, and I found that fascinating. Then, as my parents were unpacking, out of nowhere, a fucking hot air balloon landed in our yard, and I was completely mesmerized. It was exciting and everyone from the neighborhood came out to greet us and welcome us to the neighborhood. It gave me a glimmer of hope and helped me forget about everything I had left behind and it provided some optimism about starting over in a new town.

We moved in the day before I was to start first grade at Grove Avenue Elementary School. I didn’t know anybody and was intimidated about having to meet new kids and make new friends. I suppose the good news was that I met my teacher, Mrs. Hawthorne, the day we moved in. She lived in the cul-de-sac at the end of our subdivision.

The rules were different back then and my parents started me in school at a very young age. I was the youngest one in my grade, and I would be for my entire life. I was absurdly timid, insecure and at first, had an extremely difficult time adjusting and making friends.

I did well in school but felt very distant and miserable and it became quite clear just how introverted I was. I wish I had my first-grade class picture with me right now to show to you. Everybody was smiling, happy, young, and energetic and there was ‘ol Bobby Kubiak in the bottom right corner with the most intense frown on his face—you’d swear someone had just taken away my favorite toy or some shit.

Parent-teacher conferences came and went and at some point, Mrs. Hawthorne stopped waving to us when we cruised by in my mom’s blue, wood-paneled station wagon (which years later would come to be known as the ‘Virgin Destroyer’). She seemed to avoid looking in our direction when we saw her walking her dog through the neighborhood. As we drove past her, my mom would scowl and call her Stone Face Hawthorne. I never understood why. More than two decades later I learned that during one parent-teacher conference, Mrs. Hawthorne told my parents that with over 20 years of teaching experience, it was her professional opinion that I would be a drug addict by the age of 13. My father had to restrain my mother from reaching over and lunging at her. I thought well, shit, that was kind of crazy. The audacity of this bitch! But, then again, to be fair, she was only off by four or five years.

I had a relatively healthy childhood, played a lot of sports as a kid and my father was always my Little League coach. He worked in accounting and my mom was a teacher. I was the oldest of four boys growing up in your average middle, maybe upper-middle-class, family. The four of us were easy to spot and we got to know a lot of people all over town.

After a bit of a rough first-grade experience, I made a lot of friends and on the surface, things appeared just fine. But that wasn’t the case. At home, behind closed doors, things were different. My dad drank a lot, not to the point of being an alcoholic, but it was always excessive. When he drank, he was benevolent and fun, and we all loved to be around him. The problem was when he was sober. He was upset, angry, disgruntled, and liable to snap off at any minute. I don’t know if it was the stress and pressure of being in his early thirties and having four boys and an entire family to support or what it might have been. I was always uneasy and scared when I heard the garage door open when he got home from work. I’d be like, oh shit, dad’s home, I better straighten things up if they were a mess and I better not have gotten in trouble at school or done anything to upset my mom that day.

I’m not exactly sure how or when it started, but if I got in trouble for any reason I would be sent to my room. I had to lie face down and pull my pants down around my ankles and my father would whip me with a leather belt. My brothers got whipped too. That shit fucked me